can i be close to you?
by bowtruckles
Summary: "He could hear, faintly, as though through a veil, the metal blades sliding neatly against each other, felt the gentle tug as she picked up sections of his hair, but his blood was rushing in his ears and his heart was in his throat and he couldn't focus on a single thing." DH missing moment. Written for the 2018 Seven Deadly Sins Fest on Tumblr for the Lust category.


_A/N: This was written for the Seven Deadly Sins Fest on Tumblr for the Lust category. The title is borrowed from the song "Bloom" by The Paper Kites. Hope you enjoy!_

* * *

Hermione thought she could have heard a pin drop in the tent.

Harry sat just outside, undoubtedly in another one of his broods - they'd been near-constant lately, ever since they escaped the Lovegoods', as much as Hermione and Ron tried to talk sense into him. The mid-winter air was cool and blessedly still: the many bluebell flames Hermione had conjured and set in jars around the tent were able to cut through the chill. Even with the lack of wind, Hermione couldn't help burying herself under blankets, dragging an old patchwork quilt from one of the bunks into her lap. After nearly six months away, it still smelled of the Burrow, of fresh-cooked meals and apple orchards and Hermione felt an old familiar tug in the pit of her stomach as she remembered the warmth of Ron's hand on the small of her back as they danced, her face tucked into his neck.

It hurt to think about. It hurt to be in the same room with him most of the time, to feel the magnetism between them and simultaneously want to build an impenetrable fortress around herself so that he'd never hurt her again. He had promised her, over and over, that it was the biggest regret of his life, what he'd done back in November. And she believed him, but the locket had used him to inflict a pretty large wound, and it needed time to heal.

But Ron had brought with his return a completely different version of himself. Even now, seated in an armchair that still smelled faintly of cats, he had _Hogwarts, A History_ open on his lap, head bowed as he turned the tissue-thin pages. Hermione let herself watch him as he read, blue eyes scanning back and forth, before he blew a sharp breath upward to clear his overlong fringe from his eyes. The copper strands drifted slowly back down, falling back onto his eyelids, stubbornly staying put even when he brushed them out of the way.

He shouldn't have been so mesmerizing. He was just sat there, reading (though if Hermione took a good, long look at herself, she knew the reading bit was a turn-on for her), and every so often he turned a page, or licked his lips, and she just couldn't tear her eyes away from him. He didn't know she was watching him, and it let her see all of the little things that he didn't usually show to anyone else: a version of Ron who, after months of constant vigilance, had let his guard down.

When he blew his hair out of his eyes again, she tossed the quilt off her lap.

"Ron?"

His head snapped up to meet her gaze. "Sorry," he said hastily, "am I being annoying? I'll stop - just, my hair's never been this long before - maybe-" Patches of pink popped up on his cheeks. "Maybe I could borrow an elastic, or something? To keep it out of the way."

"An elastic?" repeated Hermione. "As in for a ponytail? You've spent too much time with Bill lately."

Ron cleared his throat. "Yeah, actually, I have."

There it was again, the same sticky subject that had haunted them for months - that Ron had spent a month at his brother's oceanside cottage while Hermione and Harry had been left to contend with the impending winter and an increasingly cruel Horcrux - permeating everything they did, every word they spoke.

"I could give you a haircut," Hermione found herself saying, cool air washing over her legs as she pushed more blankets aside. "If it's bothering you."

"I don't want to bug you-"

"I'm offering," she assured him. "If you're not too scared that I'll completely botch it."

"Well-" His lips twitched. "Even if you do, who else is going to see?"

"Okay," said Hermione decisively, rising to her feet and making her way to the kitchen, from which she dragged a splintering wooden chair into the sitting room area. "Have a seat. I'll see if we have scissors."

After rummaging around a bit in the kitchen, she learned that they didn't - why would they, when a witch or wizard could just use a Severing Charm - and instead Transfigured a metal fork into a pair of shiny, intimidatingly sharp silver scissors. They gave her a bit more power than she was comfortable with - she really didn't know what she was doing, at all, in any of this - but it was forward momentum, no matter how small.

Ron had done as asked, waiting from his seat in the chair when she returned to the sitting room.

"Ready?"

"As I'll ever be."

•••

She knelt down before him, her eyes fixed intently on the messy strands of hair curtained around his face, studying him as though he were a particularly intriguing passage in her favorite book, and the blood started to pump urgently through his veins. She was so close, she had actually rested a forearm on his knee - and aside from pummeling him upon his triumphant return in the Forest of Dean, she hadn't touched him in months - and he could hardly handle it, his skin seemed to tingle even with a layer of denim between them. He gulped, trying to quell the rush of desire and affection that had begun to brew in his stomach.

"So how short should I cut it?" asked Hermione, who was apparently still all business even as she grasped a lock of his hair between her thumb and forefinger and scrutinized it.

"Er-" The question had fled from his brain as quickly as it had arrived. How on earth was he expected to concentrate when she was touching his hair? "I dunno - however it used to be, I s'pose."

He hadn't actually seen his own reflection in weeks, not since he'd left Shell Cottage, so he wasn't sure what he even looked like anymore. There weren't any mirrors in the tent, save for that little shard of one that Harry was toting around, and it was for the best because most of the time, Ron didn't want to look himself in the eye either.

Destroying the locket had buoyed him, somewhat, despite the way it had taunted him in its final moments, and the simple fact that he had even reunited with his friends at all had filled him with a sort of hope that maybe not everything was working against them. But the days had ebbed into weeks, or maybe even a month by now - he was losing track of time, a bit - and they'd been wholly uneventful, and Harry was losing steam on even finding the Horcruxes at all. Ron felt it was up to him, now, to keep working doggedly on, to push past the stagnation that threatened them.

Hermione frowned and then slid her fingers directly into his hair, nails grazing over his scalp, and he froze. He knew he was probably staring at her, and certain he should stop - it was the last thing she wanted, she had only offered to do this because he had driven her spare by constantly blowing his hair out of his eyes - but he just drank her in, because maybe this was the most he was ever going to have.

Once upon a time, he'd been so close. He'd invited her to dance at the wedding that now felt like it took place in another lifetime, and the way she had wound her arms around him, her face against his neck during the slow songs, well, he had been on the point of kissing her right in the middle of the dance floor. They were at war, they could all die tomorrow, and he might never otherwise get the chance - but he'd hesitated, because he hadn't wanted their first kiss to be in front of people like his mum and Aunt Muriel. He had thought it better to wait until after the party: find a secluded corner of the orchard, explain to her how he felt, hope to Merlin she felt the same. But then the Ministry had fallen, and he hadn't had the chance.

And now he really might never have the chance. He had bungled things up beyond all recognition, and he wanted it to be enough that they were even speaking again, but her hands were in his hair and her face was just inches from his, and it was all he could do _not_ to lean in to kiss her. He took a deep, steadying breath, his own hands gripping the sides of the chair, as Hermione slowly slid her fingers out, holding his hair parallel to the floor.

"It's gotten really long," she said, brushing his hair away from his face.

And maybe he had officially gone mad, maybe he was malnourished and sleep-deprived and just completely off his rocker, but she - well, she seemed to be doing more touching than was strictly necessary. And maybe she wanted him to kiss her. And Harry was outside, would be for hours, so maybe he could, he could just lean in, shorten the gap between them until there was nothing-

But he couldn't. He knew he couldn't, because he'd stormed out in the middle of a fight, he hadn't listened when she followed after him, crying, her voice cracking in its desperation to be heard over the rain. He'd left. He'd taken whatever it was they'd had, and whatever they'd been on the verge of, and stomped it into the mud and he wasn't getting it back.

Hermione rose to her feet, and Ron got an brief eyeful of her denim-covered hips before she stepped to his right side. Her hand glided through his hair again, taking a lock between her pointer and middle fingers and pulling it taut. There was a soft snipping sound, and then ginger hairs wafted slowly to the threadbare carpet floor. Neither spoke; Ron's heart was hammering far too erratically for him to even attempt to make conversation.

Not that he could even think of a thing to say. The silence allowed his imagination to run wild, picturing her hands sunk into his hair because he was kissing her and she wanted to hold him close; the two of them ditching the stupid rickety chair and slipping into his bunk, bodies glued together, tongues tangling. There was nothing else to distract him from her touch, nothing to stop his imagination spiraling, only the occasional snip of the scissors and their own breaths.

•••

Maybe this had been a bad idea. The scent of Ron's hair had literally been part of her Amortentia, and now here she was just constantly breathing it in, running her fingers through his unbearably silky hair, and it was all, to use a rather Ron-like phrase, doing her head in. All this proximity, all of this time alone in the tent, it was putting thoughts in her head that she wasn't sure she wanted there. Ones that she had entertained for years and yet felt foreign, oddly fresh, like they had just been allowed to resurface.

She had just wanted to be helpful. Sometimes she thought she was too harsh with him, that she was holding a grudge for too long - Harry, after all, was always so quick to forgive - but then she would remember what it felt like to chase after him in the rain, to cry every night for a month, and the pain would bubble up inside of her again, as hot and raw as it had been when he had returned with the sword of Gryffindor. More and more, however, she was starting to miss the way things used to be. She wanted their friendship back. It had always felt like their lives were designed to mesh and intertwine, and any rift between them had always been seamlessly repaired, and this - well, it had to go the same way. Her voice hadn't come out of the Deluminator for no reason.

"How's the reading going?" asked Hermione, hoping her tone came off as light, conversational, friendly even. Ron just seemed so tense, so riddled with anxiety in a way he hadn't been since his return.

Ron gave a dejected tilt of the head. "I've read the part about the founders at least five times, it's not helping. There's almost nothing about Ravenclaw - y'know, for someone who valued knowledge so much, she didn't share very much about herself."

He turned his head just enough to catch her eye, a tentative smile forming on his lips. Their eyes locked, and suddenly Hermione could hardly draw breath. Tufts of his hair, shining copper in the dancing light, were still nested between her fingers, and he looked so open, so vulnerable, so much like the Ron she used to know.

"I wish I was a better help," he added. "I've been trying to think of other places we can go, but I don't reckon we can just Apparate to Albania - honestly, I don't think I could name a city in Albania if you had a wand to my head-"

"I know," Hermione interrupted softly. "I know, I - believe me, Ron. I've noticed."

He swallowed, and she watched, shamelessly, as his throat bobbed, even pretending that there were stray hairs stuck to the smooth column of his neck just for an excuse to skim her fingers over his skin. He was warm to the touch, and completely still, as though scared that any sudden movements might disturb the calm in the tent.

"I'm not giving up," said Ron, a quiet determination in his voice. "I promise you. I'm never giving up."

And there was so much she could say, but none of it felt quite right, not when he was overflowing with earnesty like this, but their eyes met again, and she found that it was best, now, not to say anything at all.

•••

"Which jumper is this?" asked Hermione. Her fingertips grazed over the tip of his ear as she selected another lock of hair, and suddenly the tent felt oppressively hot.

And the little fires she had conjured up were good, but they weren't that good.

"Huh?"

Another little snip, and now her hand touched over his shoulder as she brushed hairs away from the maroon wool of his jumper.

"Which year is this one? You get them every Christmas."

"Right - it's the one from sixth year. None of the others fit anymore. And you must know that," he realized, craning his neck to look at her, a little smile playing at his lips, "I've seen you wearing some of the old ones."

"They're really warm," she fired back, stepping behind him so he wouldn't see the heat rising in her face. "I haven't got any jumpers that are made from real wool like yours are-"

"You can have them," he said, not minding if he sounded desperate. "Take them all, you look loads better in maroon than I do."

 _Fuck_. He hadn't meant to say that. He wasn't sure he was even allowed to say that, especially now that it had sent his imagination reeling, picturing what she may or may not wear underneath said jumper, and what it would be like to see her out of it…

"I'm not sure that's true," she muttered, though out of the corner of his eye, Ron could see the heat rising in her cheeks. "Hold still now, I don't want to cut you."

He did as told as she angled the scissors just over his ear, a futile giddiness rising inside his chest. _You're being stupid,_ he tried to insist to himself. The simple fact that she didn't want to accidentally cut his ear off didn't have to mean anything - she probably just wanted to avoid the mess - but there was a gentleness to her movements that he hadn't expected.

What if he had been reading her wrong? It wouldn't be the first time, certainly. Maybe she had forgiven him, maybe he had succeeded in showing her that he wasn't going anywhere, he wasn't giving up. He had worked so hard upon his return to make his actions had match the promise he made all those weeks ago, and perhaps she had taken it to heart.

Still standing behind him, she used her fingers to comb through the tangle of hair at the nape of his neck. The scissors went to work again. He could hear, faintly, as though through a veil, the metal blades sliding neatly against each other, felt the gentle tug as she picked up sections of his hair, but his blood was rushing in his ears and his heart was in his throat and he couldn't focus on a single thing. Death Eaters could have marched through the flap of the tent and he doubted he would have even noticed, so consumed he was with the thought of Hermione.

He could kiss her. He really could do it. He could summon all of his courage, and trust his instincts, and just go for it, and maybe they could have a tiny shred of happiness in the midst of all of this darkness.

Over the back of his neck came the pads of her fingers, rubbing his skin, and then a soft, cool gust of air. Ron's stomach flipped as gooseflesh spread over every centimeter of exposed skin: she had actually used her own breath to clear away the shorn hair - and, well, whatever the locket had tried to tell him, Ron had the sense that Hermione wouldn't have done the same to Harry. In a rush of self-confidence that he hardly recognized, he turned in his seat to face her, finding her crimson-faced, her bottom lip between her teeth.

"Sorry," she said, oddly breathless. "I don't know why I did that."

"It's okay," he replied, pulse quickening as her gaze darted down to his lips, then back up to his eyes. "More than okay."

Her lips began to curve up, relief flooding her face - and it would be so easy to just stretch his neck up and kiss her, to bury his fingers in her hair or hold her waist in his hands. And if not now, when? He tipped toward her, just the slightest amount, letting his tongue wet his lips, never breaking the eye contact between them, wondering what her lips tasted like, what her tongue tasted like-

The entrance to the tent rustled noisily, and Ron's neck snapped around so fast that it almost hurt. Bundled in several layers of cloaks and jumpers stood Harry, who regarded them with a mixture of amusement and befuddlement on his face.

 _Fuck._

•••

"You lot playing barber or something?" teased Harry.

Hermione looked down at the scissors in her hand: she had all but forgotten they were there. She had completely lost the plot: one second she was just cutting Ron's hair, and the next, something insane had come over her and she had actually blown on the back of his neck to try to get the stubborn strands she'd cut to stop sticking to him. But then… then he had gotten this _look_ in his eyes, one she'd never seen before, and she thought maybe he'd kiss her, and she knew she wanted him to, but now Harry had barged in and the moment was broken and they were never going to get it back.

"What?" she snapped at Harry, whose brows rose in apprehension. "No - I mean - what?"

Clearly Ron had dissolved her brain. If he was capable of that with just a look (along with the fact that his hair, already so gorgeous to behold, was somehow impossibly soft to the touch), then perhaps it was best they hadn't kissed, because snogging him would surely render her incapable of any coherent thought, and they'd never find any other Horcruxes and they would be stuck living in this tent forever.

"Right," said Harry skeptically, crossing the tent to fetch a glass from the kitchen. Using his wand to fill it with water as he walked back to the flap, he seemed wary of making any eye contact with either of them. "Erm - which of you wants to do the night watch tonight? Not that it's for another few hours, but-"

"I'll do it," said Ron at once.

"But you were on it last night," Hermione pointed out, "it's my turn-"

"Yeah, I'm staying out of this," Harry declared at once, ducking outside to avoid any impending bickering.

"I don't mind doing it," Ron said casually, flashing her the sort of smile that made her breath catch. "You should stay inside, stay warm."

"Oh, I'll be fine. Don't forget, I've got all your old jumpers."

And she didn't want to say it - not yet - but the memory of her hands in his hair would keep her warm all night.

* * *

 _Thanks for reading! Please review :)_


End file.
